So I was given this PT-109 boat and I think it's quite awesome. It's got some old electronics in it, even a manual speed control. It's obviously not a combat ship, bit it is a war model. Anyways, I'm going to slowly work at updating it. My plan is to update it with a hobbywing 880 esc, and a traxxas servo. For a radio system it has a 2 channel twin stick Futaba Attack transmitter with matching reciever and servos in the boat even. (I didnt get a picture of the transmitter, but I did find the exact model on ebay). It's almost hard to think about changing the electronics out but I know an ESC with a BEC would make the boat so much better, and wouldn't have to run a seperate reciever packs. The question here is, is it possible to add a third channel to the radio? and how hard/expensive would it be if it is possible? or does anyone know of a another radio with the twin sticks that are single channel that has a third channel toggle? I do want to keep.it having that old school cool feel to it, so I want to stick with an AM or FM transmitter that fits the era of the one I have now for it If I cant find anything or it just is too expensive to add an extra channel, I may just do the ESC upgrade, and wire the slide switch to it (right know the flip switch turns the speed control on and off, the slider turns the receiver on and off) and wire the other one for a manual control of the lights. Also, not sure what props to run on it, but I would like to put some on it that are made of some kind of metal (steel, brass, etc.). Current ones are plastic. I'm not looking to gain any speed, just durability, and maybe something that is less likely to get caught up if I hit some weeds or something. Eventually I want to make a replacement top section, that has a camera mount, and make it a camera boat. Should be big enough, and with some extra protection I will add to it, BB and ram resistant.
So, I thought it was a Dumas boat model, but it's looking like it's a 1/32 Lindberg the more i look into the boat. still could be wrong. and for simplicity, I'm just going to wire one of the toggles for the esc's power switch, and the other will be for the LED lights when I install those. I might run a separate pack jsut for that, i haven't decided yet.
You can buy all sorts of props of all sorts of shapes, sizes, blade types, blade counts, etc from Model Dockyard.
do.you know.if there is any particular style I should look at? I'm gonna get the same size as the plastic ones on it now. I suppose I should make sure they can be swapped first, if there is anything available. I'm just looking to me aure if it gets caught up in some weeds that it can just blow right through them. I dont know much about props. pitch and blade count and all that. I'm also not sure which way the props should spin, opposite of course, but which way goes forward faster. I'm gonna grab more photos and take a look at it more, and do the small repair tomorrow. I'm in need of connectors at the moment, so the electronics swap might not happen right now. I just need a servo. For radio I'm either going to stick with the current stick, or swap to a 27mhz AM 3 channel Traxxas. LEDs will be manually switched if I stick with the current stick model
I have no idea what is scale/should have come on a PT boat. If you look through the props offered they normally come in "styles" like 147, 152, etc and each style will have a short description. This is what I found after a quick googling, this is the rear end of a US Higgins PT boat. Almost any of the Raboesch 3 blade props could work, its up to you and what you want it to look like. Pitch is how far the propeller will travel forward per revolution if there was no slippage in the water. So if you see pitch presented in a unit of distance, like meters or mm or inch, that's what it's talking about. Some places show it in degrees, you can do math to figure out the travel per rev. As for the diameter of the prop, I'd go for something about as big as you currently have or maybe a tad larger. Water doesnt scale down, so a little bit bigger of a prop vs scale is a sin I think most could forgive.
it seems there is a lot of variations with these models that may not be correct, or at least not documented well enough to determine what is right for what # PT boat. Some have triple prop and triple rudder, Triple prop and dual rudder like that. Mine has Dual Prop amd Dual Rudder. And I've seen dual rudder, single prop amd single rudder single prop. im not sure if it's just the RC conversion kit or if there were PT boats that were actually built like that. What I'm finding for the PT109 more is the triple rudder and prop setup. I'll have to check the underside before continuing on. I might also look at adding the third prop and rudder, if it's not to complicated. I wish the deck came off better, it seems it's glued at the seam, and the access hatch is just the center part with guns and cabin and such. I may end up keeping it like it is and just doing the little bit of electronics modernization and calling it good enough. I still want to put the LEDs on it, but I dont want to just glue them in, I'd like me kind of housing for them to go in that looks like they would really be there. At least a spot light shining ahead or something, would be cool to putt it around at night.
here's the best shots my phone wants to take. 2 blade props. What would be the benefits of going with more blades? they are about an inch and a half. I dont mind keeping that size. I do want to put new motors in it eventually, so I can go lower turn as well. I think it's set up for a 12v+ system as there is a series adapter for 2x 6cell batteries. I'd like to keep it 2, but parallel for run time. I'll be using a hobbywing 1060 ESC. Edit: Definitely needs new motors. Put new wires on and connectors to remove the wire nuts. They were wired in parallel, but I went series, should give the boat longer runtime. However one hardly spins. Being that they are in series, it's making contact, but I'd assume just old and in need of replacement. It spins sometimes, and then just stops. How should the props spin for best speed? like which direction? I can switch it easily, but should port go clockwise and starboard go counterclockwise, or vice versa? I have the ESC all ready to go in. I still need to waterproof the reciever still, as well as replace the rudder servo with a waterproof one. I know going back to series will make it faster, but I was planning new motors soon, so might as well get ones made for a single pack. If I run 2, I'll run parallel for run time
So I finally got the boat on the water (the wife's friend has an in ground pool) ran fine, just had some issues. Only had forwards. The motors and such were reversing, but when in the water, only went forward. Also, forward on the stick seemed slower than "reverse" and didnt have steering. Also, when it did steer, it was very wide. I plan to change props, so hopefully that will help with the forward/reverse issue. What props should I look at getting to help, 3 or 4 blades or a "steeper" pitch or something like that? With the steering, is there anything I should look at that will help it? I suppose I could add in a dummy shaft in the center with a fake prop to act as a drag disc like on a combat ship, but if there is something else that would be better, I could do that. I might change the rudders too, since it doesnt specifically have to have these ones.
